Playful Teasing
by jameshasnocats
Summary: Danny ended up sharing a table with some lady named Tess in some hipster café. And maybe Rusty was sitting about one fast food branch away, but he'd have to be blind to not see the fact that Danny definitely has a thing for Tess. Obviously, there's only one logical course of action.


Sometimes, Rusty's known to make _The Expression of Chaotic Scheming._

It's described as this extremely focused expression. Something about Rusty's eyes and the whole furrowed eyebrows thing. Not quite like glaring, but achieves the same effects.

Of course, Rusty hadn't been aware of his tendency to make _The Expression of Chaotic Scheming_ \- until Danny pointed it out. There was apparently one too many incidents linked to him making _The Look_ , and that was surprisingly enough to tip Danny over the edge and into no-man's-land.

Personally, Rusty doesn't think it warrants the swearing, but Danny's aggravation is just too amusing, and the mirth far outweighs Rusty's meager and playfully insincere complaints.

..And another thing is, Danny's been shooting him wary looks for the past five minutes. He's probably making _The Expression of Chaotic Scheming_ again.

Rusty swears he's sporting T _he Look_ for a good cause though, and he proceeds to not tell it to Danny.

Danny rolls his eyes at him and similarly doesn't reply to Rusty about how much he doesn't believe him.

Rusty grins and continues munching on his chips, thoughts returning to what he was mulling on before Danny distracted him with his overly suspicious looks.

Although.. maybe Danny does have the right to be suspicious. Because there's really no other plausible explanation for his current predicament. The running theory is that Rusty is actually a cruel, cruel man, and that this strange new side to him is a dormant trait awakened by Danny's.. actions the day before.

Yesterday, when Danny ended up sharing a table with some lady named Tess in some hipster café. And maybe Rusty was sitting about one fast food branch away, but he'd have to be blind to not see the fact that Danny definitely has a thing for Tess.

Obviously, there's only one logical course of action.

And because Rusty embraces the fact that he is a cruel, cruel man, he chooses the exact moment Danny picks up his wine glass to succumb to his urges. Urges that were currently poking and prodding at him to ask a Very Important Question :

"So," Rusty pauses long enough to be interesting. Danny tilts his head slightly, taking a sip, as he was prone to do in situations regarding Rusty and _The Look_. "Who's Tess?"

Danny almost spits out his wine and Rusty relishes in the flustered look that momentarily took over his normally composed friend's face.

"..Tess," Danny echoes blankly. He gives Rusty a carefully curious and pointed look as he gingerly rests his wine glass on the table. Which was more of a reaction than Rusty expected. Danny is clearly affected by the name, and he surprises himself with the small, sharp stab of jealousy that suddenly flickered _(God knows why, he lies to himself)_. "Tess?"

And because Rusty is on fire with the entire "Good Best Friend" thing lately, he pushes back that little bit of jealousy to the back of his head. He smirks and leans forward, because Rusty's not only known for his thievery and _The Expression of Chaotic scheming,_ but also for being a cruel man, a little piece of shit and being kind of masochistic. _(Well.. maybe not the last one, but he knows it in himself, so it's the thought that counts)_

"Yeah," Rusty affirms through his chips. "The one into art, about.. yeah high," he gestures vaguely a height that's probably way off _(because Tess is definitely not a dwarf and Rusty's currently sitting down - even teasing Danny is not worth the effort of moving from his perfectly comfortable position on the couch)_. "The -"

"How did you even-" Danny begins a little indignantly, and Rusty cuts him off with another _look._

"As I was saying," he continues airily as Danny quiets down, raising a brow at him. "Tess, the charming and fair brunette lady," he cheerfully ends.

"Yesterday, you ditched me for burgers, and then now you tell me you.." Danny trails off, shaking his head with a laugh. His smile grows exasperated, before he pauses. Danny furrows his brows and his smile falls. "..Charming and fair?"

Rusty snorts gracelessly. "Well, at least _you_ think so."

"I.. do?" Danny stares at him as if he's a particularly moronic circus exhibition, and crosses his arms.

Rusty huffs, crunching his chips aggressively to convey as much displeasure as humanly possible. ..Maybe teasing Danny wasn't exactly the way to go then. "Dude, relax. I'm not about to steal Tess away from you, y'know."

Danny blinks at him and seemingly considers Rusty's growing discomfort and it's source. He immediately banishes what Rusty's dubbed as The Look Of Vague Displeasure, and Rusty relaxes in response.

"Sorry?" Danny offers. And then something a little like realisation lights up his eyes, and Danny stares at Rusty as if he's grown two heads or something equally outrageous.

Rusty doesn't appreciate it as much as he didn't appreciate The Look Of Vague Displeasure, so he returns to aggressively munching his chips.

"..Rus," Danny begins slowly and gives him a searching look.

Rusty looks back bemusedly, and maybe Danny found what he was looking for, because he buries his face into his hands a moment later and releases a long-suffering groan.

Just like that, his partner-in-crime devolved into a primate.

Maybe Rusty could convince this primate to get him all the pies they could find in the area - he'd kill for pie right now. But the thought of Danny dressed up in a full blown monkey costume is too surreal to think about, so he proceeds to the next logical course of action.

Rusty pokes him. Once, twice, thrice. And when that didn't work, he crumples up a stray piece of paper and chucks it at his primate friend's head. Only then, did Danny react.

His partner-in-crime evolved back into a human and straightens.

"Rusty. I am an idiot," Danny declares mournfully. "An actual fucking idiot."

"..Of course you are," Rusty agrees for the sake of being a little shit.

"But so are you," Danny continues a moment later, a little too gleefully. Rusty reaches to his bag of chips for the classic aggressive-chips-munching strategy but grasped only thin air, so he kicks the smug-faced ex-primate instead.

"You think I like Tess?" Danny asks in lieu of an explanation.

"Obviously," Rusty easily answers, unable to see where Danny was going with this. And on the other hand, Danny..

"Rus." Danny bursts out laughing. "Tess - she - you - I don't like her, Rus. At least, not in the way that you think. I wasn't worried one bit about _you_ stealing _her_."

Danny silently hands him a newly opened bag of chips, and Rusty has no idea where he got that from, but no way in hell will he reject free food. He munches slowly to consider this newly-gained information, and exactly what it implied. Particularly, the fact that he's been reading Danny wrong this entire time, and well, that was a first with the two of them, wasn't it? - except that would mean..

Rusty aborts his munching midway and lowers the bag of chips.

"..Oh," he says quietly. Danny is giving him that amused twinkly-eyes look, and Rusty wants to kick it off his face. But because he is a benevolent Saint and a Good Friend, he simply sighs in faux disappointment _(..if his heart begun to beat a little faster, then Rusty definitely has no idea why)_. "I've been teasing you wrong, haven't I?"

Danny laughs at him.


End file.
